The First Ten American Patents: Lighting, Ethanol, Fertilizer, Rebellion, You Know, Our Kind of Stuff
From Mental Floss:
During the spring of 1790, the U.S. government passed the first
patent law. It got off to a slow start—only three patents were granted
that year. Things eventually heated up, though, and by 1836, the total
had climbed to almost 10,000. With documents piling high, the government
decided to protect all the paperwork in a new, fire-resistant building.
Construction began, and they placed the files in temporary storage.
Which promptly caught on fire.
The blaze gutted the building and destroyed the records—despite there
being a fire station right next-door. (It was December, and a wintry
freeze mucked up the pumps.) Today—and some 8 million patents
later—those documents are called the “X-Patents.” Although most of them
are lost, we have a barebones record of what used to be there, giving us
a peek into what America’s earliest inventors were up to.
Patent X1
Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont snagged the first patent July 31, 1790. His invention improved “the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new apparatus and Process.”
Patent X2
Joseph Sampson’s invention aided the “manufacturing of candles.”
Later on, the Boston candle maker helped invent the continuous wick.
Patent X5
Aaron Putnam’s invention improved the distilling process. Sadly,
there’s no record of what he was distilling. He landed the patent just
two months before the Whiskey Excise Act became law, the tax that
sparked the Whiskey Rebellion....
